Wettlaufer inquiry: Nurse's colleagues called her 'angel of death'

Some staff at the Woodstock nursing home where nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer killed seven of her eight victims started calling her the “angel of death” after she was overheard telling a palliative patient it was OK to die, a nurse told a provincial inquiry Wednesday.

ST. THOMAS — Some staff at the Woodstock nursing home where nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer killed seven of her eight victims dubbed her the “angel of death” after she was overheard telling a palliative resident it was OK to die, a nurse told a provincial inquiry Wednesday.

“(Wettlaufer) spent extra time with palliative residents and had been overheard saying to a palliative resident that it was OK to die,” registered nurse Karen Routledge testified. “I’m not comfortable (with that) . . . If family members want to say (that) it’s OK, but I don’t feel it’s a nurse’s role.”

The Caressant Care member who tagged Wettlaufer with that name was not a nurse, she said later.

Routledge was concerned after resident Maureen Pickering suddenly died in March 2014. Routledge’s unease was amplified after Pickering was taken to the emergency department at Woodstock General Hospital, where a doctor, Elizabeth Urbantke, flagged unexplained low blood sugar and suggested Caressant Care inform the coroner.

“I had concerns before (Pickering) went to hospital,” Routledge said.

Wettlaufer inquiry: key witness/nurse Karen Routledge, who was a union rep for 2 years, says she first learned of Wettlaufer’s full and lengthy discipline record not from @ontarionurses nor Caressant Care nursing home but from reading of it in @LFPresspic.twitter.com/wr6ewmbLF8

The registered nurse phoned a 1-800 number for Ontario’s Coroner’s office, left a message that shared Urbantke’s concern, and received a return call 72 minutes later from a local coroner, Dr. William George, who told her an autopsy was unnecessary.

Routledge testified she doesn’t recall if or how George explained his decision, but that the decision lay with him.

“I was puzzled that (Pickering) had extremely low blood sugar (but) you don’t ask a coroner to do an autopsy. That’s a physician’s call . . . It’s not a nurse’s responsibility,” she testified.

Asked about staffing levels at Caressant Care, Routledge said she believes there should be three registered nurses working each night shift rather than a single one who is helped by a registered practical nurse – who has less education and capacity to assess patients than does a RN – and personal support workers.

The inquiry then turned to a witness who could speak to another setting in which Wettlaufer found victims, a Brantford agency called Lifeguard Homecare whose services included providing RNs to long-term care homes short of nurses.

The president and part owner of Lifeguard Homecare, Heidi Wilmot-Smith, hired Wettlaufer in January 2015 without checking with her most recent employer – Meadow Park in London.

In an affidavit, Wilmot-Smith affirmed that she assumed Wettlaufer was still working at Meadow Park because her resume listed no end date – it stated 2014. Wilmot-Smith said she made that assumption even though Wettlaufer had indicated she was seeking 40 hours or more a week through Lifeguard.

As a result of her assumption, Wilmot-Smith did not contact Meadow Park before hiring Wetlauffer, because as a matter of practice, Lifeguard did not check for references with current employers.

“It is my practice not to contact current employers directly without the applicant’s permission,” she wrote in her affidavit.

Wilmot-Smith repeated that rationale when asked by commission lawyer Liz Hewitt, who didn’t ask if Wilmot-Smith had sought that permission.

Instead, she said she spoke with one reference each whom Wettlaufer had listed in her applications, one from Caressant Care, and a second from a previous employer where Wettlaufer worked as a personal support worker, Christian Horizons, which provides care to adults with developmental disabilities.

At Caressant Care, a nurse named Sandra Fluttert identified herself as Wettlaufer’s former supervisor, Wilmot-Smith said.

Fluttert gave her a “glowing recommendation,” and said the nurse had left the Woodstock home because she had felt burnt out after clashing with senior managers over being forced to work when the home was short of staff, Wilmot-Smith wrote.

Wilmot-Smith later testified Wettlaufer’s resume made no mention of her first job as a nurse at a northern Ontario hospital. Wettlaufer was fired in 1995 after she stole, used and overdosed on narcotics while working a shift, a firing that was buried after the nurses’ union filed a grievance and struck a deal with the hospital that changed the paperwork from a firing to a resignation.

Wettlaufer inquiry: Woodstock ER Doc who treated victim Maureen Pickering diagnosed her w/extremely low blood sugar – which can be caused by insulin overdose- but it is unclear so far from testimony if coroner William George saw or considered that diagnosis b4 rejecting autopsy

After Lifeguard hired Wettlauffer, the agency tried to get her a temporary placement at Caressant Care in Woodstock, but an official there named Carol Hepting said the home didn’t want Wettlaufer working there.

“I suggested that since Ms. Wettlaufer had previously worked at Caressant Care she would be a good fit to be placed in that facility, since there would be no orientation required. Ms. Carol Hepting confirmed they would not be interested in having Ms. Wettlaufer back but declined my request for further details. I took note of this comment, and determined to watch Ms. Wettlaufer closely for the first three months while she was on her probation at Lifeguard,” Wilmot-Smith wrote in her affidavit.

But she said she considered the lack of disclosure a yellow and not a red flag because she had seen others who had issues with the management of a certain nursing home go on to do excellent work.

“I would just wait for the next few months and see how things worked out,” Wilmot-Smith testified.

Eight months after she was hired, Wettlaufer tried to kill 77-year-old Sandra Towler at a nursing home in Paris, Telfer Place, that has arranged for her work there through Lifeguard. Wettlaufer later pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

The serial killer also pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder, three other counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault between 2007 and 2014, with seven deaths occurring at Caressant Care in Woodstock and one at Meadow Park Long Term Care in London.

Her crime spree led the Ontario government to appoint an inquiry to examine how Wettlaufer killed and harmed patients without being detected. Nine weeks of testimony are expected at the Elgin County Courthouse, to be done in September, with a report due next year.

A public inquiry into Elizabeth Wettlaufer’s spree of nursing home murders is being held at the Elgin County Courthouse in St. Thomas, Ont. (DEREK RUTTAN, The London Free Press)

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